The day began and we were more hopeful than expectant. Upon hearing the news that the Manchester City lads had only been in the country a matter of hours, the players must have smelt blood. The only thing I smelt, however, was a strange burning as we passed over the Pennines in my Dad's Mazda 2.
Thankfully, it must've been some crazy farmer on a hill somewhere as the smell wasn't coming from inside the car. We arrived in the private car park, adorned with Manchester City badges, so us 'Boro-simpletons' didn't get confused, and gave the nice man in the luminescent jacket £7 for the troubles of letting us park in this strange piece of land behind some silver iron buildings. As we pulled up, McDonald's in hands, we were thankful to see, not only Boro fans, but other cars. The car park we went into before was deserted and looked 'dodgy as' and was through an assault course of pot holes and round the back of a random building.
On the walk down to the Etihad, however, we thought that the stadium, despite looking like a spider, was a great looking stadium. Some pictures of it can be seen on the twitter page for this blog - https://twitter.com/onestevegibson/media
There were also numerous novelty scarf salesmen. Although they seemed good from a Boro fan's perspective, you had to question how many that Man City Fans would buy. If they were £5 to sell, you'd imagine that they weren't that expensive to make, due to the sheer number of them about.
There was refurbishments around the ground, but once inside it did look very good, high sides that made it look rather intimidating. It looked quite different to how it does on Match Of The Day.
Multiple groans came out from those in the crowd as we discovered the man keeping goal for us would be Tomas Mejias, the man who conceded 3 to Sheffield Wednesday, a team that lost 7-0 and 2-1 to Manchester City earlier in the season. It was also no surprise to see Lee Tomlin in the team, as he had scored 3 in the previous 2 games. Adomah started over Adam Reach, presumably Karanka opted in favour of the more experienced head of Albert. These were the only real surprises in a team that also saw Kike dropped to the bench and Dean Whitehead start in right-back, as Kalas' injury he picked up against Cardiff hadn't healed in time.
The team was a very strong one, especially for one that had played just 4 days previously. And as the game kicked off, the 6 players (Dimi, Friend, Ayala, Gibson, Clayton and Leadbitter) whom had played nye on every game since the turn of the year, were called on from the off. They saw a lot of action in a first half dominated by the hosts (let us not forget Deano, also, who played very well in the game.)
Now, contrary to what has been said by ALL media outlets (except Jermaine Jenas maybe), even tough Manchester City troubled our defense with shots, Milner's was the only real chance where they got a clear sight of goal. Boyata lashed wide with 3 bodies in front of him and Silva refused to head the ball. Milner's shot was dealt with very well by Mejias who pushed the ball around the post. for a corner. Also, in the first half, Ayala was claimed to have handled the ball in the box. And I have to say that this is rubbish. You can clearly see Ayala's hand is about 6 inches from his hip and only moves as the ball is coming towards him, in an attempt to get it out of the way. So Mr Fowler, it , therefore, wasn't a penalty.
The only real attack of note from a Boro point of view, in a half plagued by misplaced passes and unsuccessful dribbles, was when Tomlin put the ball in the back of the net from 10 yards, after Bamford had already been called offside. Whilst it counted for nothing, it showed to the team that they could break down City's backline.
AK must've had a word with his players as they came out in the second half and tried to run at City and tried to close them down, where as we had been sitting back in the first half. I enjoyed the second half a lot more, not least because of the fact that I could actually see there attacks, where as the crossbar had obscured my view before.
We attacked with a lot more intensity and after a worrying Man City corner that amounted to nothing, a bouncing ball in the midfield was misjudged by Fernando and Bamford, and Kompany's backward header was nodded on by Bamford to Vossen, who inturn poked the ball through to Adomah. Fernando managed to stab the ball back towards Caballero. The Argentine, however, was slow off his line and Adomah kicked the ball into Caballero, the ball then rolled agonisingly goal-wards and we thought Fernando was going to get it clear. But Bamford had other ideas, as he ran in the way of Fernando's clearance and the ball hit off the diving loanee's leg, and into the back of the net.
Delirium ensued for us, the travelling faithful as 10,800 arms were either held aloft of shaken wildly or used pick up others. It was a great moment that will live long in the memories of all that were there. Moments later, we thought it would happen again, as more inadequate 'keeping from "Willy" lead to a chance for Lee Tomlin, who, after skilling past 3 blue shirts fired against the goalkeeper. The rebound fell to the one man we would have hoped and prayed for it to fall to. Grant 'Thunderb*****d' Leadbitter. He wound up the shot, and as all the Teesside faithful waited for it to hit the net, the falling leg of Fernando stopped his glory.
This great chance was only topped by that of Lee Tomlin. As the pass came to his fee, with his back to goal, he turned 180 degrees with the ball at his foot and hit a shot with the outside of his right foot off the inside of he post and the ball tickled wide of the other post.
For those who are yet to see the Tomlin Turn™ https://t.co/c0n10wSQ6k
— Kay Murray (@KayLMurray) January 24, 2015
Such great chances went begging, such as Adomah's attempted chip and Vossen's volley at Caballero, that we could have been 7-0 up, if we had taken the chances. You don't hear that reported! No, only the 4 Man City missed.Man City's only real chance of the half came when Lampard's 20 yard effort hit he upright courtesy of Adam Clayton's outstretched leg.
We dominated the game, and we finally put the game to bed in the 92nd minute, and after Bamford was fouled whilst running through on goal, the ball fell to Kike, who had failed to score against teams like Reading, Wigan and Cardiff, who rolled the ball past the city 'keeper and put Boro 2-0 up vs the champions. Kike's celebrations are endearing him to us Boro fans, he ran into the crowd and celebrated after scoring his goal. Much like his 'thumbs up' celebration after scoring against Bolton.
It was an amazing game, and amazing day. And, now, we will hopefully have another and with the same outcome because we have drawn Arsenal in the 5th round.
As ever, though, Karanka remains focused on the next game, as Derby have the chance to go ahead of us today (27th) so Brentford is a game that, if we win, means we can go top (again.)
Up the Boro.
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